Journal of Hate and Disappointment – Day Three

Dear Journal,

Well, I missed it again this year. I had much higher hopes this time ’round, too. I’d been to it’s counterparts in the preceding nine months. But, no, events conspired to keep me away from the Made In The Shade Beer Festival in Flagstaff, AZ. It was held Saturday, July 12. I wasn’t there.

Why? Well, of course the Ultimate Reason: I couldn’t afford it! Fuel prices are ridiculous. It would have cost well over $60 just to drive there. I would have needed a hotel room, no doubt. So, figure another $40. Then there’s the admission to the festival, $40. So, $140 and I haven’t even eaten anything or bought souvenirs. There was no way I could make it. Too many bills at home that are behind.

I left my second job in October. I’m now wishing I’d not. However, it was a construction company and has absolutely no work now. I’d be out of work either way. Still no beer fest.

I shouldn’t complain (but it’s my nature!), I did make it the Great American Beer Festival last October and the Great Arizona Beer Festival in March. I’d hoped it was a beer festival attendance pattern. But it wasn’t. Oh, no! Finances got in the way.

Stupid world.

The Expert Jerk: What the ******** is Banquet Beer, anyway?

Why ask me a question about Coors?  Do I seem to be a Coors drinker?  Does it appear that I even care?  Oh, I’m just some jerk sent here to answer lame questions, is that it?  Whatever.  Since I’m a jerk and I exist only to serve the Great Questioners, here goes:  What is ‘banquet beer?’

Only the god of cowboys really knows, and he’s too stupid to remember or to be able to explain it to anyone.  So, we’re on our own trying to decipher Coors’ idiotic moniker.

Oh, all right.  Maybe not totally on our own.  According to the official Coors website (yes, I went there.  I didn’t enjoy it.  It made me deathly ill for weeks, but, hey, what do you care – you needed answers!) the name was added to the label in 1936 because miners in the 1800s threw parties called ‘banquets’ and drank Coors at them.  Yeah, that’s right.  Parties from the 1800s changed Coors label in 1936.  Brilliant.

So, let’s consider. Miners spend all day in dark underground caverns with a bunch of other guys.  They are all jacked up on weird chemicals wafting through the mine shafts, not to mention they are oxygen deprived.  At the end of the day, these madmen are released from their tunnels.  Drooling with stupidity and streaked with the underbelly of earth entrails they sally forth into the night demanding ‘banquets!’  They probably eat bits of bark, armadillo parts, any rodent stupid enough to get in their way – and they demand a drink to accompany this feast.  A sane person has just tossed away a big case of Coors pee.  The miners find it and declare it a treasure beyond all treasures.  “It done taste jes’ like’n’ that whizz we done drank last yonder weekend,” says one of the depraved inmates – miners! – to another.  The chief of the nuts declares the beer to be their ‘banquet beer.’  The Coors brewery hears of this.  They’re happy that someone finally likes their beer so they adopt the appellation.  Great stuff, eh? 

I mean, truly, not even the Coors company knows why it’s called ‘banquet beer’ other than that one obscure reference, yet it’s become ‘iconic’ of the igit canned beer.  Whatever.  You know what else is just spiffy?  If you go to most craft beer websites there’s a link called ‘Our Beers.’  Notice the ’s’ at the end of beer, denoting more than one.  At the Coors website, that option is singular.  One beer.  That’s it.  For however many years.  These idiots don’t even have to keep track of more than one beer and they still don’t know the roots of the name.

Well, I hope yer all happy now.  I have answered a question in a jerky fashion and uncovered more Coors stupidness.  And made myself sick in the process, what with all the cowboy beer viewing I had to do. 

What a Nightmare!

Go read this news story. 

Okay, now that you’ve stopped rolling your eyes and sighing with weariness, let’s discuss.  I like the 80s, too – especially the music.  The movies were pretty cool, too.  But is Michael Bay really so vacuous that all he can do is remake the movies from his childhood?  Yes, there’s a strike, but still – what a moron!

First there was Transformers (which was actually fun to watch) – a remake of … toys fro the 80s.  Now the Nightmare on Elm Street movies.  And Friday the 13th.  Good lord, in their first incarnation those retarded movies lingered and lingered and lingered with sequel after sequel after sequel.  Now Bay wants to start that cycle over?  Does he have nothing better to do?

So, like, is Freddy going to destroy alot of stuff in this new movie?  I mean, that’s Bay’s thing right?  Destruction.  Take a city, or whatever else, and maul it in any way possible.  I can’t imagine him actually making a movie scary.  No, it’ll just be lots of blood and Freddy doing his normal cackling.  And it will all be completely vapid.

What disturbed me the most about the article was Bay’s plans on a remake of The Birds.  He’ll ruin it completely.  Currently, Martin Campbell is on board as director.  Here’s a list of some of his films.  You tell me if they are Hitchcockian in any way.

Casino Royale

Goldeneye

Legend of Zorro and Mask of Zorro

Get the picture?  The Birds is a classic and brilliant suspense film.  Now there will be intense action sequences wherein a mad gull chases and unsuspecting idiot through the streets of some little town!  Oh, the horror!  Doubtless, the bird will lob it’s pointy beak into some defenseless loser’s eye – oh, but first it’ll miss a few times, gotta make it suspenseful, right! 

Maybe there will be a cool motorcycle chase scene.  Yeah!  A flock of birds bearing down on a Harley.  Woo-hoo.  Then, Freddy can jump out of nowhere, claw a few birds, laugh maniacally; Jason can machete his head off and a giant ********** asteroid can destroy everything!!  How fitting!